Ancient Egyptians might have domesticated wild cats nearly 2,000 years earlier than previously thought.

Egyptian artwork from 4,000 years ago depicts domesticated cats alongside humans. But in 2008, Wim Van Neer at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels and his colleagues discovered six cat skeletons buried in a cemetery for elite Egyptians that dates to the fourth millennium BC. The teeth and bones resemble those of modern domestic felines. The cats — two pairs of kittens, and an older female and male — seem to have been born outside the breeding season of wild cats, suggesting that humans had a role in rearing them, the researchers say.

J. Arch. Sci. http://doi.org/rsg (2014)